Saturday 31 December 2011

My thoughts on 2011.

I thought since 2011 is coming to an end, I thought I'd give my opinion of this year based on my experience, Those who know me in real life would know that I don't usually like the modern years. It's surprisingly mixed this year, very much leaning towards the bad side, but still. I'll explain.

At the start of the year, literally, when it became new year, my cousins were all at our house to celebrate the new year, it's a tradition we have, we either go to our house or our grans. Anyway, my cousins, Steven and Giancarlo were in my room, and I asked them if they wanted to try Goldeneye out, because up until that point, they were practically trying to avoid playing my old games, they even seamed to think less of me because I played old games. However, they said yes this time, so we played a match, and we were having a great time, then Steven said to me "Maybe you could bring this over next time we're at grans, and I could bring extra controllers and games!", I finally convinced them that there was some fun to be had with retro games, and to me, that's a major plus for this year.

Also, another major plus in my opinion is that I finally left my awful high school, and started college! Which I'm very much enjoying!

Also, my collection of games have grown quite a bit, I'd never thought I'd own a Jaguar, let alone a Jaguar CD, or even consider getting a 3DO and a CD32, but here I am, playing all of them practically every day! Although now I'm having a problem with space now.

Another thing, it's a bit minor though, but I've been introduced to the Sam & Max franchise, and it was practically love at first sight, after playing and completing Episode 104, I instantly wanted everything with the Sam & Max name on it, good or bad!

Also, this really isn't a plus or a minus, but it was amazing how we got 5 PS2 games this year, 8 in America! I predict that the PS2 has another year in it left, I mean in march 2012, MLB 2K12 is coming to PS2, and it'll maybe get it's versions of FIFA 13 and PES 2013 (I hope so.), and that'll be it, the PS2's had one heck of a life, and it wasn't until this year that I realised that, long live the PS2!

Now onto the minuses, these are a bit personal, but these outweigh the good of this year, my great gran passed away, she lived until her 90s, so she's lived a good long life.

The more important one, my dad suddenly passed away this year, I suppose it's not all terrible, because they say those who passed away can still visit you in your dreams, and when that happens, it'll fell real, there's a term for this, but I have no idea what it is, but this is has actually happened to me, twice!

2011 Media Summary:

Overall, it's mixed, alot of good has happened this year, but alot of bad has as well

Friday 30 December 2011

Retro Diary - 30/12/11 - Christmas(ish) Special

I haven't been online since Christmas day, well I have, but I've been too busy playing the Sam & Max games to write this, but I decided to take a little break from them to write this. (it was hard to pull myself away from playing them, they're just so awesome!)

I decided originally to forget about writing this, but then I remembered the reason I started this series in the first place, so I can look back and if I forgot exactly what happened in my memories, I can read these entries to remind me exactly what happened.

Anyway, enough blabbering on, let's get started!

Dear Diary,

Despite the tragedy that happened in my family slightly earlier this year, I really enjoyed Christmas this year, I got almost everything I wanted, I say everything I mean I didn't get my Sam & Max DVD boxset and the copy I got of Season 2 was a faulty copy, stupid conmen! Also, the copy I got of wipEout 3 Special edition what the 2 games package which came with that and Destruction Derby 2, which I didn't want, I already had Destruction Derby 2, I didn't want it again!

I managed to get it working if I boot it up a certain, obscure way, but I'm planning on getting a legit, UK version of the game plus the Sam & Max DVD box set and a proper copy of wipEout 3: Special Edition from Amazon.

Anyway, here's what else I got:
  • Laurel and Hardy DVD box-set
  • Gorillaz Compliation Album
  • Sam & Max Hit the Road [PC]
  • Sam & Max - Season One [PC]
  • Sam & Max - The Devil's Playhouse [PC]
  • World Tour Racing [JagCD]
  • wipE'out 6 [N64]
  • wip3out [PS1]
  • Darkseed [CD32]
  • Mashed [Xbox]
  • Mashed: Fully Loaded [Xbox]
  • Motorstorm: Arctic Edge [PS2]
I haven't got the time to take photos of all them, so, obviously, I can't provide photos. I've been mostly playing the Sam & Max games, I've completed Season One, I'm in the middle of Season One, I've still to play Hit the Road and Devil's Playhouse.

Speaking of, I've been hearing that the PC version of Hit the Road doesn't work on XP and Vista PCs, and that you still need DOSbox for them, but I tried the game out without DOS box, and it work perfectly fine, I don't see what everyone's problem is.

Overall, like I said, despite what happened in November, I had a great Christmas!
The same day, we went down the grans for our Christmas dinner, I brought my CD32 and PS2 along, since the main TV was apparently going to be busy, we had to use the other TV in the sitting room, which has dodgy colours, but I suppose it was better than nothing. So me and Steven played a few games of Motorstorm on it, and I showed him Rise of the Robots and how bad it was.

Then my brother and his brother (I still need permission to use their real names) came in with the Xbox 360 and used the main TV, great! Interesting thing though, they were about to play FIFA 12 on it, so I decided to show them that we didn't need their fancy next gen multimedia system, and stuck in FIFA 12 on the PS2 and played that.

I don't remember much else, I do remember having a game of Motorstorm with Giancarlo, but then he had to leave, we left not long after.

The next day, we went there again, but this time, I didn't bring a console, my brother brought his PS3, we had 3 games, before we started, he said to me "I'll show you how to really play FIFA!", and I ended up beating him in 2 of the 3 games, yeah, it seams my way of playing FIFA is the superior way!

After that, he had a few games with out cousins, then we were thinking of doing a local-ish tournament, so far, we only have 6 people in it, we need 8! We're going to work something out though.
Wow, I thought this diary would be longer, oh well.

Cobra!

Thursday 22 December 2011

Retro(ish) Arrivals: Toy Story 3 [PS2], NBA 2K12 [PS2] and Counter Strike: Source + Beta [PC - Steam]

Remember how I mentioned that I discovered 2 new(ish) PS2 games? Probably not because I didn't share it on Facebook like I do with every other post, but I did and I ordered both, both of them arrived today.

It's pointless trying to create tension and build up to what they are, because they're in the title of this article, so I'll just go straight to them.

The first game is Toy Story 3, I had no idea this was released on the PS2! Well, I kind of did, I looked it up in Wikipedia, but there, it only mentioned a US release date, and I looked up on the UK Amazon to confirm that it's an American only release, and it didn't appear on Amazon UK, but it did the US site, that got me kind of mad, I loved the film, and I loved the games for the first 2 films, so of course, I wanted to get the game to see how it compared.

After a little research out of boredom, I discovered that there was a UK release, of course I was chuffed, not I can get the game and play it.

If you don't believe me, here's a couple of photo of the game for proof:



It's still sealed, which is why I didn't take any photos of the inside of the case, and I'm not going to open it just to take a photo, I'll open it when I'm about to play it.

The second game is NBA 2K12, the story to how I found out about this is also kind of interesting. I was on Yahoo Answers, looking up PS2-related questions to answer, and I kept seeing questions about NBA 2K12 on PS2, because it was basketball, an mostly-American sport, I assumed only the PS3 and Xbox 360 version would make it over here like the MLB 2K games.

I looked it up anyway, and I found out that the PS2 NBA2K12 was available here, again, I was kind of exited, another new game for the PS2! Like I said before, it's my aim to get every PS2 game released since the start of 2011 and beyond to help keep the PS2 alive, stick the finger up at the next gen devices, the I-pod Touch, the 3DS, the PS3 and Xbox 360, all of those modern platforms, because I don't need them, as they still make games for the PS2! You could call me a rebel of sorts.

Anyway, that also arrived today, again, it's sealed, and I'm not willing to open it just for a photo, here're photos of the case anyway:



That was all I got though, yesterday, my cousin, Steven. got a free game from a sale on Steam, Counter Strike: Source, but since he already had it, he asked if I wanted it as a gift, of course, I accepted!

So that's me got Counter Strike: Source, I've always wanted it! Now I have it plus the Beta for some reason, but who cares, it's kind of 2 games for the price of 1, which was nothing!

Now if you'll excuse me, it's killing me not playing these games because I'm writing this article, I'll be off to play these (hopefully) awesome games!

Sunday 18 December 2011

Retro Diary - 18/12/11 - "You've landed on the challenge square!"

Dear Diary,

This week wasn't as busy as other weeks, so it shouldn't take as long to write this.

On Saturday, while me and my brother were wrapping the rest of our other brothers' presents, when my mum came in with a package, I recognised it, it was my 3DO, my mum said that I had too many presents for Christmas already, so she gave me the 3DO early!

On the same day, me and my brother went Christmas shopping, and we went HMV, Game, we bought a few presents for others in the family, and then we went to The G-Force store, there, I found XIII on Xbox for £2 and the Pokémon Soul Silver Strategy Guide for £10, I couldn't resist.

When we were back, we were going to our Gran's for some reason, but we were still going the next say, and our cousins were coming up, with that said, I decided to bring my 3DO up, the usual happened, I was playing a few games on my own before my cousins came, and my brothers were watching me, I asked them if they wanted a shot, they tried it out, my 8-year old brother hated it, but my 6-year old brother loved it, he was playing for most of the day.

When he wasn't playing it, my and Giancarlo tried out Super Street Fighter 2, it was my first ever time playing it, so I set it to the easiest mode, and I got thrashed every time, I only got a win if I was lucky.

Then we tried Corpse Killer, which is an FMV (Full Motion Video) game, which nowadays, are supposed to be so bad, they're awesome. We almost cried of laughter the fist scene, it had a very bad actor in unconvincing zombie/undead costume zombie and a Jamaican character, who couldn't possibly be more stereotypical if he tried, and then it went to the actual game, it was just awful, we had a blast!

Then we tried Twisted, another FMV game I had for the 3DO, but this time, it was actually a decent little game, it's a board game, it's like Mario Party meets Monty Python's Flying Circus. A major complaint with it, though, is that it's a stricly a 4-player game, you can't have A.I. in the game, so you need to play in 4-player, or you could play it in 2-player if you're playing as 2 characters each, which was what we did.

Most of the squares in the game are called "challenge squared", where you do a challenge (Never(!)), if you win it, you get to roll again, otherwise, it's the next player's turn, it said alot of variations of stating where you've landed, to avoid repetitiveness, and it actually works. When we packed the 3DO, we kept quoting the things said in the game, mostly "You've landed on the challenge square!".

Later that night, my mum said to me that she had all of my presents wrapped except for one, because she ran out of wrapping paper, so she just gave me it early, it was a money bad, with a Mario mushroom picture on it.

Then I came across her room, the door was left wide open, and I saw Driver San Francisco Special Edition for PC, still unwrapped, and my CD32 under it, I told my mum about those, and she just let me have those early too, yes!


I tried out Driver: San Francisco on my PC, and it wouldn't install, it wasn't until the next day when I finally got it installed. (InstallAnywhere is a piece of sh*t!)

My laptop just met the game's minimal requirements, heck, the RAM was way above the requirement, meaning that I can run it, right? Well, apparently not, the game ran at like 3 frames per second, the controls were delayed by a full second, and it crashed after a minute of playing. Those liars!

Steven was a work again, so it was just me and Gianni, instead of my original plan of bringing the Dreamcast, I thought that we didn't play enough Twisted, and brought the 3DO again!

We played pretty much the same games as we did yesterday, but this time, the cousin that we played the Dreamcast with a while ago was there, he lived through the era, and recognised the 3DO, he said he never had one or knew anyone who did, but he said he remembered it being around.

We showed him Corpse Killer, and he seamed to enjoy it for it suckage! I would've thought that although the FMV games suck now, they were great at the time, they looks amazing, but my cousin, who was around at the time they were new, thought they were an awful idea, so it turns out they sucked back then.

He actually got further then I did, and we discovered that the game's only attempt to increase the difficulty is to just throw (sometime literally) more zombies at you, they didn't even make them stronger or get stronger ones in the game.

We were also talking about bad films, well, the so-bad-it's-good type of films, including The Room and Troll 2.

In a nutshell, here's what we played, both days coincidentally enough in the same order:
  • The Need for Speed*
  • Road Rash*
  • Crash N Burn*
  • Corpse Killer
  • Twisted
  • Escape from Monster Manor**
* = We didn't play it on Sunday. ** = We didn't play it on Saturday.
Not sure what we'll do next week, because it's Christmas day... I'll get back to you on that...

Cobra!

I've found another PS2 game out this year!

I'm determined to collect every PS2 game released that year and afterwards, if they are any, but I'm not too sure about this game...


That's right, it's a Ben 10 game, it was released in February 2011, but I don't know if I should get it. I mean, it might make me a laughing stock of sorts because it's Ben 10, but it's a PS2 game, released this year... What do you guys think?

Saturday 17 December 2011

Retro Arrivals: Panasonic 3DO

It turns out I was getting alot of stuff for Christmas, so much in fact that my mum gave me one early, to avoid making my brothers jealous, it seams I got a little carried away with the things I wanted, but they were all pretty cheap, being that most of them are old, so I thought that'd balance it out, especially since my youngest brothers are getting a 3DS plus a game each, but apparently not.

It doesn't really matter anyway, I'm too fussed by that, as long as I still get the Sam & Max games, I'll be happy!

So I was given my Panasonic 3DO, I was looking forward to getting that, so I got exited when I was given it early.

For those who haven't heard of the 3DO, it's a console released in 1993, 1994 over here, it was overpriced, but given the time it came out, the graphics looks really nice, it was the first console to have 3D textures polygon games, such as Crash N Burn, and Need for Speed.

The model I have is the Panasonic FZ-1, which I think was the first one, here are a couple of pictures:




As you can see, the power cable is hard-wired in, so if you somehow break the wire, you're f*cked!

The model I have is an American model, so the plug obviously isn't the same as the one we have:


However, because the seller who originally had it lived in Britain (not sure whereabouts, probably England.), he had a converter:

As you can see, the plus is huge! I can hardly fit it in with my Jaguar plugs, and that was the only spare socket I had left!

Because the 3DO I have is the American one, I would need a TV that supports NTSC, luckily, mines does!

The controller is pretty cool, it's like a 3-button Mega Drive controller with shoulder pads:


Another cool feature with the controller, although I forgot to take a photo of it, is that it has a controller port at the top of it, the 3DO console itself has only one controller port, so the second controller would plug into the first controller, the 3rd player controller would plug into the 2nd controller's port, and so on. You can daisy chain up to 8 controllers this way, well, theoretically, it can go on forever, but the console only allowed 8-players, I love this feature, it eliminated the need to buy a multitap!

Won't you need to stay close together to play it? I hear you ask. No, you probably won't get the impression from the photo, as I tied the cable up to fit in the photo, but the cable is massive! I could fully outstretch my arms while holding it and they'd still be some cable dangling on both sides, and I have before, just to see how long it was, so you won't have to stay close to play it.

However, I've heard that the controller is awkward for fighting games, and it seams that the previous owner was a fan of fighting games, my 3DO came with Samurai Showdown and Super Street Fighter 2, and also, an adapter which allows SNES controllers to be used for the 3DO, as I don't have a SNES, at least not as of yet, I have no use for it.





It came with a couple of games, however, they're all burnt ones:

Some of them don't even work! I suppose though I'm not the one in the wrong, the original owner was for copying the games, they came with my 3DO when I bought it.

I've tried out some the games that do work, and surprisingly, the 3DO has a pretty solid library of games, they are some gems in the pile I have, such as GEX, Crash N Burn, Road Rash and The Need for Speed, although most of the games for the 3DO were later ported to the Saturn and the PS1.

The only exclusive 3DO game I have right now that's good is Crash N Burn, which is great! I've also heard the Shockwave games, with the exception of Operation Jumpgate, were never ported to other consoles either, and I've heard that they were good, so I'll check them out in the future.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some 3DO to play!

Cobra!

Sunday 11 December 2011

Retro Diary - 12/11/11 - ""Grr, I'm angry" *Stomps*"

Dear Diary,

On Friday, on the way to college, I bumped into my sister on the bus, she was on her way to Christmas, she asked me what I wanted, I said "Keep it a surprise.", Why am I tell you this dear diary? Well, when I was home after college, my mum told me she spent £40 on my present, and that I'll never figure out what it is. Great! Another mystery present! This is going to be an exiting Christmas indeed!

Later that day, My cousin, Steven, and his brother, whom I don't have permission to use his real name yet, came up to our house today.

Me and Steven played a few games, first of which was Half Life: Decay for the PS2, if you don't know, the PS2 version of Half-Life came with an exclusive 'DLC' of sorts, called "Half-Life: Decay", which is a co-op game.

We played the second mission, as we've completed the first, and we finally completed the second one.

Then we played out favourite game, WWE All Stars on PS2! We had a few games, a couple of normal matches, a couple of 'Hardcore' Matches, although they're one weapon in the entire game, and a cage match, which was fun.

Then we played WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2011 on the PS2, to show him how good the WWE games were on the PS2 before All Stars, not that we actually liked All Stars because it was good.

We started off with a Ladder match, which actually started my wrestler -a CAW of Neo from the Matrix- interrupted Steven's wrestler -Stone Cold Steve Austin- entrance, and then I did a finisher on Steven, grabbed a ladder, set it up and climbed up it, and tried to grab the title, however, Stone Cold got up and knocked me down, this repeated a few times before I won, the match lasted a record of 2 minutes!

Next, we tried an Inferno match, according to the instruction manual, forgot the wrestlers we played as, you had to drag your downed opponent to set him on fire, we tried that a good few times, but absolutely nothing happened, only once did it do what it's meant to do! So we quit, the match obviously wasn't going to end.

Last, but certainly not least, we tried a Last Man Standing match! We enjoyed this! I was my custom wrestler, named "Ricky Dateen", and he was the Big Show.

Steven was on the floor for most of the match, and every time he got back up, I did a turn-buckle dive and got him back down, one time, while he was down, I said "I'll go easy on you", and did my signature move, which was a turn-buckle dive on him, and then a finisher, which was also a turn-buckle dive, it gave him enough time to get up, kind of a stupid move by me there, one time I tried to do a turn-buckle move on him, and accidentally knocked out the ref, stopping the countdown.

He got me down a couple of time, but, admittedly by a stroke of luck, I got up quickly every time. In the end, he lost.

Then we played Re-Volt on the PS1, I was busy writing notes for this Retro Diary, so I gave my little brother the controls, and told him, for a joke, that it was Square to accelerate, and left and right were reversed, and he fell for it, I did tell him in the end the right controls, and he was off, when I was done taking notes, I took over, and lost by a mile, because I gave my brother the wrong directions, he ended up a lap behind, wasn't his fault, it was mine.

So I wanted a rematch, and for a while I was in the lead, until half-way the last lap, in a stupid move, I stopped to let him pass so I could hit him with a rocket, but I spun out of control, and lost the race.

Then we played Tempest 2000 for the Jaguar, we played the Tempest Duel game, which was 2-player game, where we had to take out each other, we tried a best of 3 match, I won 2 matched, but at then, another round started, so I won that, and it was 3-0 to me, and THEN I won.

We then tried a best of five match, and the game ended before any of us for 3 or 5, weird... Steven did manage to defeat me in a couple of rounds, the game ended when we were neck and neck. (2-2)

We were about to play Lylat Wars on the Nintendo 64, but Steven had to leave in 5 minutes, so I decided to play a quick game instead.

We played Lego Racers on the Nintendo 64 instead. During the race, Steven kept on bashing against the wall, well, not exactly a wall, but a blocked off shortcut, because of this, I won the race.

After that, he left.

Here's a quick list of what we played:
  • Half Life [PS2]
  • WWE All Stars [PS2]
  • WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2011 [PS2]
  • Re-Volt [PS1]
  • Tempest 2000 [JAG]
  • Lego Racers [N64]

On Sunday, it was N64 week, and Steven had another Sunday shift at Asda! That sucks!

So I set up the N64 and popped in Lego Racers, built my guy, and went for a Test Drive, at that moment, my brother stepped in the room, not the one I gave false directions to on Friday, I showed him it, as he played it before, he wanted a shot, so I gave it to him, and he had a go of it for 10 minutes, during that time, he asked me "Do you remember I used to try to boost into the crowd?", I forgot all about that! We tried doing that a few times, but failed. If you have no idea what we're talking about, go get Lego Racers, create your character in it, and go to "Test Drive", you'll know what we mean then.

Then my cousin, Giancarlo, arrived, we had a game of Wrestlemania 2000, which I won by pinfall, then he had to leave, but he said he'd be back.

During that time, I created a wrestler for the 'Road to Wrestlemania' Mode, and spent almost the whole day creating his move-list, they were 138 different types of moves to edit! Talk about creative freedom! Before I was done, Giancarlo was back, and I continued to modify the move life for another little while, then he made a comment on one of the available moves, which was called 'Angry Kick', he said, for a joke; "What's that? Is it like "'Grr, I'm angry" *Stomps*'?", then he saw another moved called the 'Cocky Kick' and he was like "Is that like 'I'm going to win!'*Kicks*'". Then we had another game, which I won by submission.

Then another cousin of mine's son wanted a game of Lego Racers, so we had a game, but since he hadn't played anything outside of the Wii, he assumed the turned the controller to turn the car, we kept trying to tell him you had to use the analogue to turn the car. Then, me and Giancarlo had a game of Lylat wars, then I had to go. Hopefully, Steven won't get a Sunday shift at Asda, so we can have a proper N64 week, otherwise, it's Dreamcast week next week.

Cobra!

The PS2 Lives on... Sort of!

Guess what guys? I've found another PS2 game released this year! Although PES 2012 came after it, since the PS2 hasn't exactly had a waterfall of games this year, I think it deserves a mention.

And the game is... NBA 2K12!



Alright, it's another yearly sports game, and it probably sucks, but if you think of it this way, it's on the PS2, released in 2011! That's crazy! What's even more crazy is that it says it has online, again, in 2011!? The last PS2 game I saw that had online was Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, which was released in 2005!

As you all probably know, I'm on a mission of sorts to collect all of the PS2's last games! Experience it's last moments! Be with it on it's deathbed, holding it's controller, until it's final breath! If no one's doing it, I will! I have and will continue to get every game on the PS2 that came out after Smackdown Vs. Raw 2011. However, I ended up missing this game in-between FIFA 12 and PES 2012, and considering the PS2 hasn't had many games this year, I can't have that! I'll get it for Christmas!

Speaking of getting every PS2 game since Smackdown vs. Raw 2011, I miss yet ANOTHER game, but I don't blame myself, because this game was hard to find at Amazon, and that was the only place that sold it, well, that and probably the G-Force store I was talking about a few articles ago, because of this, I jumped to the conclusion that it was only released in America, however, I counted my chickens too soon, as it turns out, it got a UK release, albeit probably a limited one, seeing how hard it is to find it, but still a release.

That game is Toy Story 3!



If you look up Toy Story 3 in general at the Video games category, the PS2 version doesn't appear, however, if you look up "Toy Story PS2", it's the first result you get! Yeah, you're going to get sales by doing that Amazon(!)

I've heard that the PS2 version is different from the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii version, but I heard it was still good, so I'll be getting that for Christmas as well!

If you guys can, tell me about any upcoming PS2 games, because I'd love to know, I want every game that comes out on the PS2 (If they are any left.) from this point on, you don't have to buy it for me or anything, just tell me about it.

Cobra!

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Horse of the Week - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater [N-Gage]

My cousin, Steven, wasn't at our grans last Sunday due to a shift at Asda. However today, we got to meet up at our grans for lunch, so I brought along my N-Gage with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, so we could do the Horse of the Week.

This is a new feature I'm making for my blog, we were always playing Horse in a Tony Hawk's console, I have a Tony Hawk game for every console and handheld newer than the Saturn, so we are always playing a game of Horse in them, so I decided to make this a feature for my blog, where we keep score of our wins, and plus, we always have a random word for horse, because you can change the name to whatever you want in the games.

So as you've probably guessed, the game used this week is Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for the N-Gage, unlike the other versions, you can actually change the name to anything you want, whereas in the other versions, you have to stick with "Horse", also, a nice feature is that for horse, you don't need another N-Gage, you can just pass it around to the second player.

This week, the horse of the week insult is: PJPJKJ5JJL!

Currently, the score is 3-1 to me.

After this week, I'm going to keep track of the scores to make this longer, but since I haven't this week, I'll go straight to the result.

The Winner was...

Me!

Steven is a PJPJKJ5JJL!

The score is now 4-1 to me!

Monday 5 December 2011

The Mysterious Christmas Present...

I mentioned on last weeks Retro Diary that I was told to wrap up my little brothers' presents, well, what I didn't tell you, mainly because I forgot, somehow, was that my mum also gave me one of my presents to keep safe until Christmas day.

Problem is... What is it?


Honestly, I have absolutely no idea what it is, not a clue!

I originally thought it was my 3DO, because the box it came in was the same shape and size, and it was around the same weight, but my brother and mum told me it wasn't and I saw the 3DO box in my parents' room (the door was left open slightly), and saw the 3DO in it.

It can't be my CD32, because the box that came in is different and again, I saw it in my parents' room.

It can't be a TV because the box is too fat and heavy for the modern flat screens and too small and light for it to be a CRT.

My mum and my brother told me it wasn't a console, maybe they weren't being specific, maybe it's a console add-on, maybe it's a Mega CD! I've always wanted one of those... nah, it probably isn't!

There's no way it can be a VCR or a Blu-Ray/DVD player, because I already have one of each, and yes, this paragraph was a filler...

It's haunting me whatever is in the box, sometimes I can't sleep because of it, I'm so tempted to open it up, but my common sense side is telling me to wait until Christmas day to find out what it is, it's probably better if I do.

It doesn't help that I have to keep it in my room until Christmas day.

What is more annoying, was that they are actually, for some reason, damp patches on the wrapping paper, although you can't see them in the photo, they're there, when I try to look through them, all I see is more wrapping paper! They've layered the wrapping!

I'm looking forward to that morning when I wake up on Christmas day and opening this big mysterious present and finally finding out what the heck it is.

What do youse think it is?

Sunday 4 December 2011

Retro Diary - 4/12/11 - "I want to change my team formation!"

Dear Diary,

On Thursday, me and my brother had a few games of FIFA 11 on the PS3 in his room, I don't remember the results, I haven't written them down, sorry, but I do remember scoring a few good goals in it.
Afterwards, we went to my room and played a game of Smackdown vs. Raw 2011, unlike out games of FIFA 11, I took notes from it when the memories where still fresh, we only had one match and man it was a long match!

We had a 6-man Tag Team No DQ Best of 3 falls match!

I played as 3 of my custom characters, their names were Ricky Dateen, Chad Paiphin, and "The FAT! Guy!" Cobra!, the latter of which is an interpretation of the old, fat me!

He went as Kane, and our 10th and 11th Doctor Who CAWs, yes, we actually made them plus the 9th Doctor in the game, I made a Youtube video about it.

My brother was at the start dominating the match and got the first win.

I, however, fought back, and got the second win.

At this point, it was very tense, it was virtually neck and neck, momentum switching back and forth, we literally wrestled in every spot, every individual polygon of the arena, eventually, I cleared the announcers table, got my momentum up, and performed a table finisher, pinned him and I won!

That was a match that I will NEVER forget... Who won again?

On Saturday, we were told to wrap my brothers' presents with the brother I played against in Smackdown vs. Raw 2011. On the Saturday, I was playing FIFA 12 on PS2, and I told my brother to take over for a while, when he was done, he actually asked if he could play another game, I was surprised, I thought he hated the FIFA games on the PS2, I guess he wanted to give it a chance, so I said yeah, but unfortunetly, the next match was an international match,

'Why is that a problem?' you'll probably be asking, dear diary.

Well, it's because I was a defender in the international matches as opposed to mid-fielder.

'Again, how is this a problem?' you'll probably still be asking.

Well, it's because the game gives you goals that only apply to strikers, and they're pretty persistent when your a defender, meaning you HAVE to stay near the back, yet it gives you goals like attempt at least 3 goal shots or score a goal from a cross... How are you supposed to do those!?

Anyway, My brother almost scored a goal from his side of the field, it was SO close!

After the match, he stopped playing, I imagine he's p*ssed off, I'd be too, I've been there.

Today, it was PSone week, unfortunetly, my cousin, Steven, couldn't make it because he had a 10 hour shift at Asda which lasted all throughout the time we were there.

For about an hour I was just sitting there, bored, playing Crash Team Racing, it's a great game, don't get me wrong, but when you're playing on your own at a time when we're meant to be playing multi-player, it can be boring.

Then my other cousin, Giancarlo, came along.

Then I remembered that I forgot to bring Vib Ribbon, which was Giancarlo's favourite game for the console, however, I bought along a game that isn't as much fun, but will do to fill the gap left by forgetting Vib Ribbon, and that was a game named Sheep, he used to have it back in the day, and the intro brought back alot of memories for him, although he didn't act like it, am I the only person who shows an emotion when something brings back my memories?

We played a few 2 player games, neither of us had tried 2 player before, even back then, so we assumed it was a co-op game, it was a 2D game, so the Playstation could handle it easily, but we were disappointed, it was just a game of football, we thought we'd give it a bash anyway.

What you had to do in the game is herd sheep to getting the ball into the other played goal.

It was okay, I mean it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. Giancarlo changed places with my brother, nothing to say about that match, then I switched places with the other cousin that was there, and he kept saying stuff like "This is the worst thing I've ever experienced", and was also joking about by saying stuff like "I want to change my team formation!" and "I want to make a substitution!".

After that, we played a few games of Tekken 3, even though it was my game, and therefore had the most practice, I lost most of the matches!

After that, we left.

Next week is N64 week, I hope Steven will be there next week, because N64 week is kind of boring without him.

Cobra!